The Ghost Of You
by Net Girl
Summary: Post-series. Faye deals with her feelings about Spike. And Jet finds out just how much she really cares.


Rating: PG-13 - a few curse words.  
  
Summary: Post-series. Faye deals with her feelings about Spike. And Jet finds out how much she *really* cares.  
  
Spoilers: "The Real Folk Blues Part II".  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Sunrise, Bandai Entertainment, Shinichiro Watanabe et al., and their many, many well-paid lawyers. I am NOT making any money off this, nor am I trying to infringe on anyone's copyright. Believe that.  
  
Authors' Notes: My first anime fic of *any* kind. Some of my friends finally got me into it, and they failed to mention it was addictive like crack. This is dedicated to those sneaky bastards! :)  
  
Questions, Comments, Suggestions: Send to donnacsoprano@netscape.net. All flames are read, laughed at then deleted with extreme prejudice.  
  
"The Ghost of You" by Net Girl  
  
*********  
  
"What am I supposed to do/ With all these blues/ Haunting me, everywhere, no matter what I do/ Watching the candle flicker out in the evening glow/ I can't let go/ When will this night be over?" - "The Ghost of You and Me", BBMak  
  
*********  
  
Faye Valentine sat on the sofa, staring at the empty table in front of her. Her posture was slouched, as though she'd been beaten down physically by someone or something, and the expression on her face was equally as empty as the table. She drew in a deep breath then let out a long, pained sigh. Things were too quiet the last few weeks. By now, she would've had two or three arguments with him. Over what, that always differed. Most of the time, it was about unimportant bullshit. Some days, like the day he left, it was over something that mattered.  
  
The fingers of her right hand curled around the grip of her favorite gun. Bowing her head, Faye sighed again and closed her eyes, which now brimmed with fresh tears. [Why am I still crying over this?] she angrily thought. [He wouldn't listen to reason. He *never* listened to reason ... not when *she* was involved.] Her eyes opened and she watched as a few tears splashed onto the floor.  
  
She hated crying. Nowadays, whenever Jet wasn't around, that was all she did. Not even a decent sized bounty could inspire real joy within her. In fact, it only made her more miserable. She and Jet had established an understanding - 50/50. With only two of them left on the ship, it wasn't hard to agree upon that. However, when *he* was around, Faye fought tooth and nail for her share of the reward. Half the fun of doing the job was arguing with Spike over how much she was entitled to receive once it was finished.  
  
A flash of his face.  
  
Faye lifted her head. Spike was the selfish one, not her. Hadn't she made it clear to him that she actually *cared*? More than she should've. More than anyone with any sense in her head *would* have. No, why would he notice anything about her when Julia clouded his mind, his senses and his very soul? Why would he give a damn about what Faye felt for him? He didn't. That was obvious when he walked away from her.  
  
Faye brought her gun into both hands. The light glinted off of its black metallic surface. In her head, she could hear the click of the hammer as she'd cocked it. Her mind's eye flashed back to her looking at his face, down the barrel of that very gun. As though a gun to his head would've stopped him. He did whatever the hell he wanted. What he wanted had nothing to do with her, no matter how much she wished it would've.  
  
Gun in hand, Faye rose to her feet and ambled towards the bay where she and Jet kept their personal spacecraft. Just behind her Red-Tail, carefully stored on the other side of Jet's Hammerhead, was the last possession of Spike Spiegel's they had - his Swordfish. She and Jet discussed selling it, each time knowing that Spike's ship would never leave the Bebop. The presence of the ship fooled them, even if for only a few seconds, into believing Spike was there, then reality would crash down on them.  
  
She pressed her palm flat onto the ship's hull, gazing up at it as she did so. How many times had this thing saved his life? She'd lost count. A humorless laugh escaped her lips. The ship that usually saved him instead carried him to Vicious and his ultimate demise. How ironic.  
  
[I hate irony,] Faye bitterly thought as her hand slipped away. A moment later, it was limp at her side. Her gaze shifted from the Swordfish. She hated herself for acting this way. [Why are you moping over him? That ... that idiot deserved what he got! He wouldn't let go of his past ... not until it killed him.]  
  
She used to envy him. He had a past he could remember, something to connect with and learn from. By the time Faye remembered her own, she realized the present was more important. And then it was too late. Her body trembled with the anger she felt towards him. Her teeth gnashed together.  
  
"Why did you do it?!" she yelled as she backpedaled away from his ship. She lifted the gun and squeezed off a few rounds. The bullets embedded themselves into the hull and left a severe crack in one of the windows. Her weapon remained pointed at her target as she breathed heavily, her eyes narrowed in utter loathing at the last remnant of the man she'd wasted her time loving. [I hope you're burning in Hell!] "Hey!"  
  
Faye gasped, her eyes widening in surprise when she heard Jet's voice echo through the bay. She looked over her shoulder, quickly lowering her gun and hiding it behind her back at the same time. She laughed nervously. How long had he been standing there?  
  
"What the hell are you doing, woman?" Jet demanded as he descended the stairs. "Don't shoot holes in my ship!"  
  
Grinning nervously, Faye shrugged. "I'm sorry. It was an accident." She held up her gun then shrugged again. "It went off. Couldn't be helped," she added casually.  
  
"Four times?" Jet replied. He folded his arms across his chest and lifted an eyebrow.  
  
With another nervous laugh, she let her gun drop to her side as she used her other hand to make a dismissive gesture.  
  
Jet shook his head, then he noticed the holes in the hull of Spike's old ship. "What? Hey ... " He pushed by Faye, his fingers brushing over one of the holes. "Look at what you did!" He glanced over his shoulder. "How do you expect us to unload this thing when it's damaged like this?"  
  
"Don't forget the window," she murmured, motioning to the window with her gun while she examined the fingernails of her other hand.  
  
He gritted his teeth when he saw the cracked window. His hands balled into fists. Ever since the day they picked this woman up, she'd caused nothing but trouble. Trouble and property damage. It was as though he had another Spike on his hands some days.  
  
"I was counting on the money I'd get for this to last us through the rest of next month!" he yelled, pointing to the Swordfish. "Since you've become next to useless as a bounty hunter these days, we have to pick up the slack somehow."  
  
Faye's eyes opened wide then instantly narrowed at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
"When we *do* manage to bring someone in - which ain't often these days - you automatically blow your share on dog races and casino games!"  
  
"What *I* do with my share is *my* business, not yours! It doesn't have anything to do with my abilities a bounty hunter, either."  
  
He stepped closer, jabbing a finger towards the middle of her face. "You're so far in debt you're never getting out. It's affecting your work. Apparently, you can't control your trigger finger." He shifted the pointing finger to the damage done to Spike's old ship. "My gambling isn't the problem!" Her hand gripped the handle of her gun so tightly her knuckles turned white. "And you're never gonna sell this piece of junk, so stop yelling at me about a few goddamn nicks in the hull!"  
  
"Well, how *can* I sell it when it's full of holes?" he angrily countered. "Maybe I shouldn't let you keep a loaded gun around here anymore!"  
  
"Maybe *he* shouldn't have left! Then we wouldn't have to worry about it!"  
  
Taking the gun into both hands, Faye unloaded the rest of her clip into the Swordfish. Jet backed away as he watched the woman mercilessly fire into the machine, with an expression of anger on her face that he'd never seen before. Finally, the already cracked window shattered as the final round broke through the glass. Unsatisfied with the damage, Faye hurled her empty weapon at the ship.  
  
"This is his fault! His! Not mine! He was the one who died!"  
  
Jet, stunned, watched Faye drop down to her knees and bury her face in the palms of her hands as she sobbed. He rarely witnessed this kind of emotion from Faye and this breakdown threw him. She'd been different since that day. Locked herself in her room for several hours, refusing to talk to him. When she finally emerged, Faye appeared ready for business as usual, but she avoided the subject of Spike as much as possible. Now, she let everything out. Right in front of him.  
  
He kneeled down, reaching out to her with his right hand. "Hey ... Faye," he gently said.  
  
"Leave me alone," she sobbed, her voice muffled by her hands. "Just ... don't."  
  
His hand withdrew from her should and he looked down at the floor. It was rough for him, too. He'd known Spike for over three years and had become relatively close - as close as one could get - with the man. He'd never imagined, though, that Faye Valentine felt *this* way about Spike. Not to this extreme. "I didn't know ..." he quietly began.  
  
Slowly, Faye's hands dropped into her lap, her tear stained face shifting until she look at Jet beside her. She didn't need him to explain what he'd meant by that. That was her problem. She hadn't been obvious enough. Not until it was too late. Even then, it was pointless to care.  
  
"He left us both, you know," Jet continued, his own voice slightly shaky. "I'm just as pissed off at him as you are. We tried to stop him. He just ... "  
  
"... did whatever the hell he wanted," Faye finished for him. She placed a hand on the shoulder of his real arm. Jet lifted his head, his gaze meeting hers. "And we're all that's left."  
  
He nodded, solemnly, then they looked up at the Swordfish. As if in slow motion, a shard of glass fell away from the broken window and landed on the floor before them. Upon impact, it shattered into several pieces. After a moment of staring at it, Faye murmured, "We'll never get rid of it now."  
  
Jet picked up a piece of the broken glass in his left hand and watched it glitter in his palm for a moment. His fingers closed around it as he looked to her. "It's nothing that can't be fixed," he softly replied.  
  
Ze end 


End file.
